The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-12-31
HUMAN SALVATION.


Rev. J. Coleman Adams preached at
st. Paul's Universalist church, Prai-
RE avenue and Thirtieth street, Sunday
morning last, from the text
Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their SINS" Matthew
i.21."
Mr.. Adams said that the researches
of the student carried him from the
lower to the higher, and the tendency
Of life was to progress. Chemistry had
its molecules and botany its cells, but
when we came to human life there were
associations and features which were
applicable to no other type of existence
but itself. Largely, human life was but
repetition of animal life until we pro-
crossed to stage when all similarity
ceased and found us in the midst of
terms and characterizations wholly hui
man and impossible of application to
animal life. Right and wrong, righte-
BUSINESS, progress, and sin were ex-
cluded from other types and belonged
to man alone. They were nowhere found
in lower animal life, and whatever atti-
tude evolutionists and scientists as
sumed they must take into account an
other word, which was salvation. We
must supplement progress with this
word = salvation. Progress meant
growth, but growth naturally and nor
mally did not cover man entirely. Sin
was mans speciality, for the brute could
not corrupt itself nor choose evil in
preference to certain line marked out
for it. Man could do it, and to meet
this malign force in his composition
there must be process resistant and
salvatory. Salvation thus became as
characteristic as growth or progress.
Man not only had to grow like child
in health, but he must be cured like a
child in disease. So that the advance
Of man into higher life included res
toration from sinful life and then
growth in purer state. This was sal
walton. By eternal years God gagged
the standard of life. A new era in hui
man development began with the ad-
vent of Christ. Life invariably came
from preceding or antecedent life. Such
was the testimony of Huxley, than
whom there was no more competent
authority. There was no such thing as
spontaneous material life, and the same
was true of spiritual life. 1t was new
life which had it's origin in the life of
Jesus Christ. The Office of Jesus the
Christ was to impart to men the higher
| life of God, to lift men out of self
from impulses, corruption, and sin. No
man entered into the regenerate life of
humanity except he be quickened by
that life.
The law of all life insists that the
later life should spring from the earlier.
Why could we not carry that from nat
ural to spiritual life and apply the
same principle2 Spiritual life was
unlike physical life, which was trans
mitted by succession. Spiritual life
was communicated by spontaneity.
1t leaped from one to another like an
emotion or a thought. 1t had nothing
tangible about it. 1t was merely COM
municated. Yet it revealed that there
was better world for man than the
world of evil desires and thoughts and
burning consciences. We were not
created to live always in this world,
but in the spiritual realm. The spirit
ual life was the life of love, obedi-
ence, faith and service-the life whose
germ was love, who ruled with blessed
scepter over all affections of the heart.
1t was the life, also, which Jesus i'm
parted to man. This process of saliva
tion was more than progress. Progress
and salvation were otidentical. There
was progress in the man becoming
boy or the evolution of cosmos from
nebula, but salvation was a success
full struggle to get out of an abnormal
and dangerous state. 1t took more
than progress to get a man in the
right path. Progress was not all-suf-
ficient of itself, for there might be
progress otherwise then in good.
There was progress in evil. 1t re-
quired more than progress to remove
scrofula from the system or to repair
broken limb. 1t required cure. Sal
walton was such cure, and hence il
was larger term than progress. 1t
was also more indicative and suggestive
than restoration. 1t did more than re-
store lost estate. 1t put man in pos
session of an inheritance better than
that which he previously enjoyed.
Man won in Christ far more than he
lost in Adam.
The second estate was to be nobler
than the first, inasmuch as it was
gained by conquest. Christ taught
man to think and feel that he was a
soldier with endless life so far as saliva
ton was involved. Death assumed no
Importance in the mind of Jesus Christ,
and there was no more fallacious doc
trine than that the salvation of man
was limited to mans life. Salvation
came to maturity on the other sida of